| The Amazing Maze Game | |
| Developer: | Midway |
| Publisher: | Midway |
| Released: | 1976 |
| Genre: | Maze |
| Modes: | Single-player, 2 player competitive |
| Platforms: | Arcade |
| Arcade System: | Intel 8080-based hardware |
The Amazing Maze Game is an arcade video game[1] developed by Midway and released in 1976. Consisting of a black and white CRT screen running on an Intel 8080 CPU, It is considered one of the earliest maze games produced, and also displays an early example of the phrase "game over."[2]
The game is centered around a top-down maze, randomly generated each time the game is played. In the maze there are openings on both the left and righthand sides, where the second and first player will start from respectively. The goal of the game is for each player to find their way through the maze to reach the other player's starting position, before the other player makes it to theirs. The game can be played by two players,[3] or can be played solo against a computer, where the player will always start on the righthand side.
Upon starting the game, a random maze is generated using Prim's Algorithm, and each player (or only player when against the computer) is given 5 seconds of time to look over the maze to find the fastest path through. After this delay, the players are allowed to move their respective players using the two joysticks on the arcade cabinet. Once a player has reached their goal position, the game will then display the fastest possible route from one side to the other, which is also the exact route that the computer would take when playing solo.[4] A point is then added to the winning player's score.
At the top of the screen, the text MAZES TO PLAY is displayed followed by the number of mazes left before a winner is determined. If the game is against a computer, this text will be replaced with KEEP PLAYING if the player ends up winning. On the bottom left of the screen is a timer showing the time spent in the current maze though while the 5 second delay is present, it will show the number of seconds left to study the maze. The bottom right shows either a counter with the number of mazes completed when playing solo, or a countdown timer from 6 minutes that persists between mazes when playing against another player. Additionally, when playing with two players, the left and right sides of the screen will show the current scores for the second and first player respectively.